Thanks for the feature on the siege of Khe Sanh (Jan. 19). Your readers might be curious about how the siege ended.

By February, the airstrip at Khe Sanh was disabled, the road (Route 9) was in North Vietnamese Army hands and the Marines were dependent on parachute drops. In the last week of March, scout helicopters from the 1st Cavalry Division airmobile began reconnaissance of the Khe Sanh area in preparation for an air assault by the entire division the following week.

According to Shelby L. Stanton's "Anatomy of a Division," "On April 8th Pfc Juan Fordoni from Puerto Rico was the first cavalry trooper to make contact as he clasped hands over the barbed wire with a Marine lance corporal......" The First Cavalry Division with Air Force support suffered "315 casualties, with 59 KIA and 4 MIA," thus ending the siege at Khe Sanh.

While our involvement in the Vietnam war and all of the lives lost should continue to be questioned and examined, the relatives of those lost cavalry troopers should know that they died to end the siege at Khe Sanh.

While I arrived in this country after Khe Sanh, the memory was still fresh in my fellow troopers. Details for this letter were taken from "Anatomy of a Division" by Shelby L. Stanton, where you can read a complete account of this cavalry raid.

Priyadarshi George

Manchester